


Wherever Is Your Heart I Call Home

by oneoneandone



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27322231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneoneandone/pseuds/oneoneandone
Summary: When I come home, when I come homeOh God forgive my mindThere's a road that's long and winding, it hollers homeI'm calling home
Relationships: Ashlyn Harris/Ali Krieger
Kudos: 22





	Wherever Is Your Heart I Call Home

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt**   
>  _Ashlyn goes into labor while Ali is away at camp_

_He’s tiny._

_Just over four pounds._

_But he’s beautiful. He’s perfect. He’s the most amazing thing she’s ever seen._

—–

When it starts, Ashlyn doesn’t believe it. 

“It’s just Braxton Hicks,” she tells Kyle, who’s been hovering over her all week while Ali’s off at camp with the National Team. 

One week down, one to go. 

And it’s not that she doesn’t love her brother-in-law, she does. But she’s barely had a moment to herself since Ali left. She’s happy that he’s excited about his impending nephew, but he’s been carrying around a copy of _What to Expect When You’re Expecting_ that was supposed to be a joke and coming to her with random facts and questions. 

Just yesterday he’d asked her if she’d gotten hemorrhoids when he saw her shifting uncomfortably on the couch while she watched a true crime show before going to bed. And a few days before that, he’d sat across from her at the table while she ate breakfast and mused aloud about whether she’d started producing milk yet. 

She’s not proud of how she responded, but even Ali agreed that he’d kind of deserved the eggs that ended up in his lap. 

So she loves him, yes, but she’d also like a little space to just breathe. 

“You sure?” he says with skepticism, “because I can skip this lunch and we can eat Nutella and paint each other’s toes while watching terrible movies staring people who used to be on _90210_ …”

Ash laughs. 

“No, go on your date, Kyle,” she tells him. “I don’t think I can handle another Shannen Doherty straight-to-video bonanza. We’ll be fine here. I promise I won’t lift a finger while you’re gone. I won’t even move off the couch. Pinky swear.”

Then it’s his turn to smile, and he pats her on the head before leaning down to kiss the top of her head. “Okay, then, I’m going,” he tells her, “but if I find out you climbed on any counter-tops or did any handstands, I’m putting you in the bubble when I get back.”

Her laughter follows him out the door.

—–

_“Krieger-Harris,” Ali says again to the nurse at the visitor’s information desk, trying to relax the grip she has on the wood of the counter-top that stood between them. “She came in earlier this afternoon?”_

_The nurse looks down at her computer, fingers tapping fast over the keyboard. But then she hears a familiar voice coming from the bank of elevators down the hall, and she feels some of the tension drain out of her body._

_“Kyle,” she says with relief, seeing him hop over to her excitedly. His grin is wide, contagious, and he picks her up off the floor and twirls her around when he reaches her at the desk._

_“Congratulations, momma,” he whispers in his sister’s ear as he hugs her tight before putting her back down. “Come on, let’s go find your family.”  
_

—–

Eventually, television gets boring. 

Watching the way her belly ripples, the way her son’s feet and elbows, his head and spine, move inside of her gets boring. 

Breathing through the stupid Braxton Hicks contractions gets boring.

Waiting and waiting and waiting gets boring. 

So Ash pulls herself up and off the couch, heading into the kitchen for a snack, pressing a firm hand into the base of her spine to relieve some of the pain there. 

“Dude,” she says softly, “you gotta give your poor old mom a break. We’ve got a ways to go still and you’ve been killing my back lately.”

But the baby just kicks again. 

Harder.

And then her whole womb seizes, like nothing she’s felt so far in this pregnancy, and, taken by surprise, Ash drops the bottle of water she’d been holding. 

“Fuck,” she says softly, and then again, louder, and half groaned, “fuck!”

—–

_She doesn’t check her phone, not immediately. Instead, after the second practice in a week of three-a-days, Ali goes straight for the shower, needing to wash the dirt and sweat off her skin._

_And after, she’s pulled immediately into a meeting with Hope and Jill and the rest of the backline._

_It’s more than an hour after practice–and only two hours until the next–before Ali manages to check the messages on her phone._

_But when she does, she almost fumbles her phone in shock._

_“Hey, Al?” Heather asks, coming up behind her, “You okay there?”  
_

_Ali feels her lungs begin to burn, and realizes she’s forgotten how to breathe. Coughing, catching her breath, she croaks out an explanation for her best friend._

_“It’s Ash,” she says, “she’s gone into labor.”  
_

_And then she looks up to meet Heather’s eyes._

_“I need to go home,” she tells her friend. “I need to get to DC as quick as possible.”  
_

—–

“What do you mean, your water broke, Ashlyn?” Kyle growls through the phone, but she knows that he’s not angry, only scared. 

She’s scared too. 

Because despite all of Ali’s worrying and making a huge point about having Kyle come and stay for the weeks she’d be away, there’s still plenty of time. 

There’s still supposed to be plenty of time.

She’s not due for eight more weeks. 

They’re supposed to have two more months to prepare and plan and be ready.

And the baby–?

Ashlyn puts that thought aside for the moment. She can’t think about it, the what-ifs, the maybes. 

She can’t.

“My water broke, Kyle,” she tells him, willing her voice to remain even and her breathing to stay calm. “I don’t know, I’ve been having cramps all morning but I thought they were false labor. But then there was a really big one and I dropped my water bottle and at first I thought my pants were wet from that but the bottle didn’t break and–”

He cuts her off, and she can hear the noise of a busy street in the background.

“Are you sure you didn’t just pee yourself, Ash? I read in the book that that–”

“I did not pee myself, Kyle,” she yells indignantly into the phone as she feels another wave of contraction building. And she tries to breath, tries to do some of the breathing technique the teacher taught them at the one and only Lamaze class they’d been to so far, but it doesn’t seem to be working. The pain is worse than the last one, and she curls her hands into fists, fighting the urge to cry out. 

“Ash,” her brother-in-law says, breath coming in gulps, like he’s been running, “I’m almost to the car. I’ll be there in thirty minutes. Just hold on, kid. Okay?”

But she knows. 

This is happening. 

And it’s happening now. 

“I’m going to–Kyle, I’m going to call an ambulance,” she tells him instead. “Meet me at the hospital. And call Ali.”

—–

_“Kyle, I swear to God,” Ali threatens as he hauls her bags out of the back of the car, “you watch over them. Don’t let Ash overdo it. She tries to do too much and she doesn’t take it easy when she gets tired so you need to remind her to not be on her feet too much. And–”_

_But Kyle just takes her arm, and pulls his sister into a hug._

_“Al, everything will be fine. It’s just two weeks. And by the time you come back I’ll have the nursery painted and everything. So,” he presses a kiss to her hair, “stop worrying.”  
_

_When he pulls away, there are tears in her eyes, and he tries to reassure her once more that everything will be okay. But Ali shakes her head._

_“Here,” she says, pulling a wrapped object out of her bag, “this is for you. Ash wrapped it as a joke, but maybe you should read it, just in case.”  
_

_And then Ali kisses his cheek and lifts her bags, grimacing only slightly under their weight._

_“Take care of my family, Kyle,” she says with a smile that’s more worried than happy. And he understands, he isn’t offended. She’s leaving her everything. He’d be worried too._

_“Go get ‘em, champ,” he tells his sister one last time, “we’ll hold down the fort while you’re gone.”  
_

_In the car, he opens the package._

_A brand new copy of_ What To Expect When You’re Expecting _._

_—–_

Ashlyn falls back against the raised back of the bed with a heavy sigh and a worried look on her face as Kyle holds her hand, eyes darting back and forth between the head and the foot of the bed. 

The silence is deafening, the doctors working furiously, until finally, a weak, frail cry breaks the growing tension in the room. 

“Congratulations,” the doctor says softly, “it’s a boy. We’re going to cut the cord and take him immediately to the NICU for evaluation, okay?” 

She gestures to Kyle, “Do you want to do the honors?”

And then the link between mother and child is gone, and Ashlyn urges her brother-in-law, the man who rushed into the Emergency room just minutes after the nurses had helped to transfer her into a hospital bed, hollering her name. 

“You’ll be okay? I mean, Ali won’t be here for awhile yet,” he asks, torn, clearly not sure if he should stay with her or follow his brand new nephew. 

And though the worry is still written all over her face, the fear, the blatant and terrifying fear that he’d seen in her eyes when he grasped for her hand and listened to the doctor list off their options for stopping her labor, has dissipated. 

“Yeah,” she says softly, tiredly, “I’ll be fine. Besides, there’s still some stuff to do here and you don’t want to be around for that.”

He grimaces at her, remembering that very detailed chapter of the book, and jogs out the door to catch up with the NICU team, wheeling his nephew’s little plastic incubator to the elevators.

“Okay, Ashlyn,” a nurse says to her, “we’re going to deliver the placenta now. Just a little while longer …”

But the blonde doesn’t hear her. 

Her thoughts are with her son, on his way to the NICU, and her wife, on her way here to join them.

—–

_“I could retire,” Ali says, more than half kidding. “I could retire and then I wouldn’t have to miss anything. No more camps, no more games, just you and I and Messi there. Has he settled down at all? Still kicking up a storm?”_

_But Ashlyn doesn’t let her change the subject._

_“You are not retiring, Alex,” she responds firmly. “No way are you retiring. You wanted a shot at another World Cup and we’re only a few months away from that. You can manage two weeks away at camp, I promise.”  
_

_Ali groans and sits down on the edge of the bed, leaning into her wife._

_“But what if I miss something,” she asks softly. “What if I’m gone and something happens, something goes wrong …”  
_

_Her voice trails off into the quiet morning light, until Ashlyn turns to her, firm, rounded belly bumping against her wife’s side._

_“Ali, everything will be okay. The doctor said that everything looks good last week at our check-up. And if–if,” she says, putting a finger over Ali’s lips to keep her from jumping in, “if something were to happen, we’ve got a plan. Kyle is coming to babysit me, your dad is just a phone call away, if need be you can be on a plane and here within a few hours. But you have to go to this camp, okay?”  
_

_They lay together for a few minutes longer before Ali nods, burying her nose into her wife’s long blonde hair, darker now that dyes were off-limits._

_“I just hate leaving you,” she whispers.  
_

_And Ashlyn tilts her head up to kiss her wife’s cheek. She doesn’t have to say anything. She knows._

—–

When Ash wakes, there’s a familiar warmth at her side, a familiar scent, a hint of home amid the sterile feel of hospital air. 

“Hey, there, baby,” she hears Ali whisper at her ear, a hand brushing hair out of her eyes, “how was your nap?”

But Ashlyn can’t take comfort in it, in the sound of her wife’s voice, the love there. Not after what had happened. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, tears already gathering in her eyes, but Ali shakes her head. 

“Hey, there’s nothing to be sorry for. You didn’t do anything wrong. Sometimes,” the brunette sits on the very edge of the bed, coming her fingers through Ash’s hair, “sometimes things happen. But the baby is okay. His lungs need some more time to develop and he’ll be here in the NICU for a couple of weeks, but he’s perfect, Ash. He’s just perfect.”

And she brings her phone up out of her pocket, unlocking it to get to the pictures saved there. 

“Here, you can see–he looks just like you,” and Ali holds up the screen for the blonde to see. 

Ash is silent for a moment, just looking at the tiny, wrinkly face there. 

“Look at that, Alex, look what we made,” she whispers. “Can we go see him?”

Her wife nods and reaches over for the call button. “Let me just get a nurse first, okay?”

But when she looks back, she sees an odd look on Ashlyn’s face. 

“Hey, what is it?” she asks, all the anxiety of the past few hours building up again in her chest. 

Ash looks sheepish. 

“I just remembered that I may have promised your brother that he could name him,” she confesses. “There was a lot going on and everything was happening so fast. It just popped out when he said I owed him.”

Ali laughs, heart resuming it’s normal rhythm. 

“Don’t worry about that,” she assures her wife. “Honestly, I’m just so happy he was here. I would have promised him anything too.” 

And Ashlyn smiles. “Good,” she says, “because last time I saw him he was talking about how Beyonce is a perfectly good name for a boy and trying to decide between Magnus and Prince for a middle name.”

They look at each other, emotions swirling. Fear and love, worry and wonder. Just happy that the world has aligned to give them this day, the start of this beautiful life, together. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Ali repeats, “after all, we’re the ones who get to fill out the birth certificate.”

And when the nurse comes in, she finds them laughing. 

**Author's Note:**

> "Wherever Is Your Heart," Brandi Carlile


End file.
